Geekoid

Well said. I agree. I think that music is all in perception- how we as humans understand and respond to sound. If you don't understand something to be music, then to you, how could it be considered music? It's like when you don't know the word for a concept. Before you know what rain is, it's that wet something falling from the sky. It makes more sense when you call it rain, and even more sense when you know where rain comes from, and what it means to you- how you experience it. You still have the senses to allow you to feel it, but it only becomes something meaningful when you understand it to be something of meaning. Before it's math, it's random numbers. Before it's written language, it's scribbles on paper.

This brings a couple of questions to mind: When do humans first differentiate between what we experience as sound and what we experience as "music"? Babies learn to speak by copying sounds; and at some point, they begin to sing songs or hum melodies. Do they realize what they are creating is "music?" or to them, is it just organized sounds that they remembered and then reproduced? How emotional is this experience? Is one's true concrete and abstract understanding of music diminished as we are educated logically on the topic?

A lot of factors dictate what we believe to be music. Some people draw inspiration from ambient sound, and consider its rearrangement music, in a similar way as a collage or found art is considered art. Others come to identify the components of music theory like melody, harmony, rhythm etc. as music. There's planning, improvisation.... it's all as complex as the human mind itself. At the end of the day, it's just sound waves (actually, even more than just that!), and how you as a human, being capable of complex cognitive understanding, can understand the sensation of sound.

Another thing that comes to mind is that music is not only heard, but felt (physically and emotionally). There are many people who are deaf that create, experience and enjoy music. In a way, they are able to experience some aspects of music better than hearing people can. I can only imagine what it would be like to enjoy music without hearing it.

So basically, I understand music to be an experience of sound- something that can be felt, that creates a response in a person that understands the experience as being something called "music". It's really a relationship we have with the outside world. Because it fits into all the cracks of who we are as people, a true art form, it's about as difficult to truly understand music as it is to understand humanity as a whole.